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Comment

but in short: up to 2 weeks ago, it was really crap: stunting, pale plants and in general not healthy. just as the last 4 years. as you know I tried everything but nothing resulted in healthy plants.

two weeks ago I was really really fed up and decided that I wanted to do something drastic:and I did!

-lights: from 8 to 10 hours. and way more light. from 150 umol at the surface to 200-300 at the surface in addition to 3 peaks of 400 umol at the surface for 30 minutes per peak.
-CO2: decreased from 90 to 55 mg/l
-NO3: the same: 10 mg/l
-PO4: the same: 1 mg/l
-TMG: increased from 10 to 20 ml per day (hey, I increased the light period and intensity)
-flourish iron: from 5 ml to 10 ml per day (hey, I increased the light period and intensity)

so apart from the light adjustment nothing that I have tried before.

Since my plants looked crap, I bought some rotala vietnam (which never looked nice in my tank and ALWAYS stunted within 2 weeks after buying)

lo and behold: in the two weeks that I have this plant in the tank, it has actually grown! and looks healthy with a nice golden shade. This makes me happy! although it is early, I can already say that this plant has NEVER looked this good. and trust me, I have bought it numerous times.
Interestingly, one stem stunted: a stem that was half the size and completely shaded by the other stems. it was also completely green. I found out yesterday and I put this stem in another place to receive more light. two more weeks and then I can draw the final conclusion.

but for now: since I decreased CO2 and increased light period/intensity, I am now sure that it was NOT a CO2 deficiency. All the parameters described above I have tried in the past, apart from the light. thus: my early premature conclusion is that I had a "light deficiency" .

One little thing, which is not very surpisingly, is that green thread algae and fuzz algae are really taking of. And due to the heavy micro addition, the TDS is now also rising above 600 uS. (used to be 350-400). So for the further future I think I will to cut back the trace fertilization a bit.
And probably ask some advice about what and how :-)

Comment

I do not think more light is going to help you. Some species will respond well to high light, most others not so much. Long term, this becomes harder.

This tank below had 75-90 micromols at the bottom, about 180-220 at the top.

After the plants filled in, the light was much less and shaded things.

Many people can keep high light tanks running for awhile, but few keep them nice over years.

Many plants are weeds. This means they can grow much better than other plants with less light and CO2, they get the jump on the other species for one or both of these resources.
then you see some plants doing very well, while others are not happy.
IME, adding more traces has never once done any harm.

Comment

yup. that's the main reason why I may want to go lower in traces. Of course, I also could add less sera mineral salt (I add 300 uS of this salt to reconstitute my RO water)

I do not think more light is going to help you.

let's see.
It is still too early to draw conclusions.
But IF the rotala and ammannia species do not stunt, then I can use this setup as starting point and play with light/ferts/etc.
let's make it clear that I don't WANT high light. so removing the light-peaks out of the program is definitely something I will try.

Comment

YME, it sounds to me like the reason the Rotala is doing well at the moment is because it has the upper hand at the moment. The existing plants in your tank are not doing well, but the Rotala, in good condition, has been placed in the tank. Because it's coming in in good condition, versus the plants that aren't doing well, it has the upper hand and can therefore take advantage of the available CO2, light, nutrients. I think if you had left the light and CO2 as it originally was, the same thing would have resulted?

Not trying to be a wet blanket, but I would be willing to bet that things will go downhill for this plant within a week.

I remember you trying all sorts of things with CO2 distribution etc, nutrients, lighting. Whilst experiementing with these various "configurations", did you wait a while before changing things? And I mean really locking things down and changing absolutely nothing for a good month or so?

Is it possible that you got the optimal configuration but didn't realise it because you changed something away from optimal too soon?

I can't remember whether you looked into this or not, but is there anybody else using the same water as you (i.e. lives where you live) that isn't having problems? Could it be "something in the water" so to speak? From memory this is unlikely - if the water is ok for us to drink then it will be ok for plants - correct?